


Looking For The Lost

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: Strangers In A Strange Land [7]
Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kain has been captured by the Hylden, and an injured Raziel must travel again between worlds to rescue him, or have both of their fates unravel before their eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking For The Lost

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of explanation: this was originally written for a long-running crossover RPG called Multiverse Haven (now sadly defunct). The basic premise of the game was that characters had been pulled from multiple worlds and marked as Chosen, in order to eventually restore a dying multiverse. There may be occasional references to characters, magic systems and some borrowed vampire terminology from other canon sources. In this chapter, both Taiki (a kirin from 12 Kingdoms) and his shirei (demon servents) make a crossover appearance in the world of Nosgoth in order to help Raziel rescue Kain.

_Before:_

 _Taiki reached out and carefully set a delicate hand on Raziel's arm. His eyes fixed on something that the vampire couldn't see, and the place on his forehead where his horn was began to glow, first under the skin, and then with a blazing light._

 _Existence seemed to expand faintly in concentric golden rings, and then imploded, as the shoku subtracted them from Haven, and added them to Nosgoth._

 

***

 _After:_

Raziel and Taiki reappeared precisely where Raziel had described, dead-on in longitude and latitude. Taiki was, after all, quite good at being a Power.

His elevation, however, was somewhat awry. They apparated many stories above a wide brick courtyard. Daylight shone weakly through the smog, and the courtyard was swarming with activity.

Human peons hauled boxes, crates -- teams of horses were lead in and out. The air was rank with the scents of activity, and of dense green magic.

Raziel and Taiki began to fall.

Raziel hadn't been expecting to be dumped into mid-air--his wings swept out instinctively. Then he gave a harsh cry of surprise as bone grated on bone, a shaft of agony sizzling through him, his injured wing flailing as he fell. The humans stopped, pointed--some screamed and ran. Guards began to pour out of the foundry.

Taiki squealed and clutched at Raziel. "Sorry!"

Some great black _thing_ erupted out of nowhere and swept them up-- a roiling black misty wind with enormous glowing red eyes and a gigantic maw full of huge teeth. It held them protectively, if ominously, in midair.

 _Where would you like to go from here?_ it asked, in a voice both serene and, yet, which sounded like the grinding of immense rock deep beneath the earth.

Disregarding the screams of panicked humans and the shouts of the guards, Raziel scanned the area. There was no sign of Kain--no sign, indeed, that a battle had even taken place. How much time had passed here since his departure?

"Away," he commanded, baring teeth in a snarl of frustration. "Outside the city--if we remain here, the Hylden will come, and bring greater magicks to bear against us!" A crossbow bolt, glowing green, whizzed by Gouran's roiling dark form as if to affirm his words.

If the sudden appearance of the figures had not caught everyone's attention, the enormous black beast most certainly did. Screaming humans fled or cowered, supplies and boxes were dropped, scattering everywhere; a trio of crossbowmen scrambled for their weapons, trying to group up and attack. At the top of a tower, some strange device began to scream, achingly loud, a long wail that went on and on.

Gouran lifted them up and away, insubstantial and yet as solid as a mountain. The bolt simply ricocheted away from him; it took much more powerful weapons than that to harm a _toutetsu_.

He took them swiftly to a quiet spot outside the city, out of sight-- for now.

Taiki kept very, very quiet.

Once dropped to the ground, Raziel braced himself against a tree, and slowly, by degrees, bent his wing forward to inspect it, grimacing. The splint had not held--it had not been created to suffer such abuse, and the bone drooped sickeningly. Two days had started the process of healing, but even vampires did not heal such things instantaneously. Hands splayed protectively over the surrounding membranes, Raziel bowed his head and considered his options; of which waiting for it to heal was not one.

Taiki stared at that wing. He could smell the blood, the wounds, the broken places, on Raziel.

It must have been why he had gotten the location wrong, he realised. It must have affected his concentration. Already, in this strange place, he could feel the stench of blood and pain settling into him.

"Will healing magic harm you?" he asked finally, quietly, a meek little mumble.

"If it is holy magic ... most likely." There was no accusation or blame in Raziel's voice. It was enough that Taiki had brought him to Nosgoth. That they arrived where they did, and how ... were merely minor stumbles. As was his inability to be healed by holy magics.

"I ... will need your help. I cannot reach behind me in order to do this properly--can you bind the bones of my wing together? Immobilize it, and I will still be able to fight. It should heal on its own."

Gouran melted into Taiki's shadow.

The kirin walked over to Raziel. "Yes," he whispered. "Just tell me how."

Raziel told him, his face set in tight lines as Taiki's hesitant hands moved on the injured limb. Knowing that showing his pain would only make the unicorn more skittish, Raziel was silent, back teeth set, and only speaking to give instruction on how to strap the injured limb closed so that the bones would align. It was a difficult task, he knew--and not one he would have given to the boy had there been any other option.

Taiki did as he was told. Though he should not have done any such thing, and though Gouran grumbled from deep within the earth and he could feel Sanshi's silent disapproval, he simply couldn't help it.

He couldn't bear to see Raziel suffer unnecessarily. So he did the very best job he could, even if his hands trembled at such painful contact.

But he was pale and sweating by the time they were done. "There," he said, with as much cheer as he could muster. "I'm all done now."

Letting a slow breath of relief, Raziel tentatively tried to flex his wing, and found that the bindings held fast. The limb still ached, of course, and would for some time, but that could be endured.

"My thanks, Taiki," he said, shoulders sagging a bit. "I would not have been able to do it nearly as well."

"That's very kind of you to say, Raziel-san," Taiki said quite contritely, "But you should be conserving your strength instead..."

"Conserving my strength?" Raziel gave him a humorless smile. "Despite my weakness thus far, I am hardly a fainting flower of nobility. I have strength enough to do what needs be done." Straightening, he looked about them. "Now--where are we? In a copse of trees, it seemed, although ... Frowning, Raziel inspected them more closely. The leaves were dried up, brittle and fell at a touch--and the land seemed equally parched, as if it were the height of midsummer. But the grey and clouded skies overhead spoke of winter, just edging into spring, perhaps.

Taiki looked around them, too.

"Something's... eating the energy of the land up," he said slowly.

 _We did not go very far,_ Gouran informed them blandly. _So try not to look too obvious._

"The land we travelled did not appear thus, when last I was here," Raziel said, still frowning. "It was green, and warm. This was mere days ago ... how much time has passed?' Looking about, he headed up a small rise, moving silently through the trees. After a short search, he found an outcrapping that gave him a vantage point--and sucked in a breath.

Meridian was huge, sprawling--far larger than he had seen before. Plumes of green-tinged smoke rose from uncounted numbers of furnaces, and the humans' dwellings sprawled out upon hillsides previously green with fields and forest. This was not the work of mere days--or even years. Such structures would have taken decades to build ...

"No ..." Raziel breathed. Decades that Kain had been in the hands of the Hylden.

"What's wrong?" Taiki asked bemusedly.

"It has been only a few days since I left this place, but--it has changed far too much for such a small span of time. For this to happen--Nosgoth has aged decades, perhaps even a century or more, since my last battle with the Hylden." His fists clenched, talons clawing into the rock he crouched upon.

"It's like being spirited away..." Taiki murmured, peering forward. "I hope Kain-san will be all right."

Raziel had no such faith. Kain had been in the hands of the Hylden for who knew how long ... and Raziel had seen what they had done to Janos, the last remaining Ancient. What would they do to a fledgling Scion of Balance?

Even worse--Raziel had never heard tell of Kain's capture by the Hylden. Was this simply another of Kain's secrets, now fulfilling itself in due course? Or had Raziel unwittingly altered the flow of history yet again, perhaps for the worse?

"The Hylden would not kill him," Raziel said slowly, thinking out loud. Kain's death would restore the Pillars, and lock the Hylden from Nosgoth once again. "So we need to find out where he is being held. He will be the only vampire in existence at this time ... that will make it easier, if we can somehow get close enough to the humans to find out what is being said."

"Gouran can take you into my shadow while I talk to the humans, if you have to hide..." Taiki stated worriedly.

"Into ... your shadow?" Raziel echoed, brows drawing together. "How so?"

Slowly, Gouran rose out of Taiki's shadow, as if it were a pool of thick black ink instead of an absence of light. This time, he had returned to the shape of a cute little red shiba inu, and panted cheerfully at Raziel.

"It's where they stay when they don't want to be seen," the kirin explained.

Wary, Raziel knelt and reached out to touch Taiki's shadow where it lay on the grass. He felt nothing--no strange magicks, no deep pool of nothingness ... just grass and dirt. He gave the small curly-tailed dog a look of deep mistrust. "Would I be able to leave this place if necessary?"

Gouran wagged his tail and blinked big moist doggie eyes at Raziel.

"Yes," Taiki assured him. "As you say you want to leave, Raziel-san. It would be stupid to keep you locked up anyway, I can't protect myself and you know this place much better."

Raziel raised his eyebrows at that. He had not missed the unspoken assumption that Taiki *could* keep him locked away, if he so chose. And quite possibly at the mercy of Gouran, who Raziel did *not* fancy meeting in battle on a ground not of his own choosing.

Still, it was the only real option they had. Raziel could skulk on rooftops and at the outskirts of the human villages, but neither choice would get him close enough to learn what he needed. The unicorn, on the other hand ... He frowned, looking down at that open, innocent face.

"Taiki--I will not ask you to do this. Nosgoth is not a kind world to innocence--to anyone. Do not make the mistake of assuming the humans here are kinder in nature than either vampires or Hylden, for they are not. You may--no, likely *will* see things that turn your stomach, and quite possibly be anathema to a creature such as yourself." He looked away, back over at the sprawling, noisome city below them. "If this is something you cannot do, better to say so now. I will find other ways of obtaining the knowledge I seek."

Taiki bit his lip. Quietly, he said, "You'd be surprised at what I've seen, Raziel-san."

For that small moment, he sounded very old and not at all innocent, despite his own face.

Raziel never faltered in his steady regard. "That is quite likely. Regardless--I require that you be sure of your decision." The Hylden were not merciful creatures, nor the humans that served them. And vampires were not the only victims of their purposes.

Taiki said grimly, "I don't want to hide behind anyone. Raziel-san is suffering. Kain-san may be suffering. It's not fair if I stay behind and don't suffer."

After a moment more, Raziel nodded. "Very well. What do I need to do to ... enter your shadow?"

"Touch Gouran," Taiki replied with forced calm.

Raziel looked at the dog. Then, with a small sigh, straightened and took the few steps necessary to get within arm's reach. Crouching down, he carefully settled one taloned hand upon the dog's small back, still regarding it warily. "I am ready," he said, bludgeoning his misgivings into submission.

Instantly, he and the dog began to sink down into the earth, though it felt less like being surrounded by dirt than being enclosed in a shadowy world.

Gouran had now become part of the shadows themselves; only his red eyes were visible.

There was another being here as well; one could see the faint shape of a white arm, a halfhearted gleam of white hair, the vague curve of a dainty breast.

Raziel could still see out, as if he stood behind Taiki. But everything seemed dim, except for the kirin himself, who blazed brightly with intense, and somehow appetizing, golden-white power... and the world's power itself, which seemed to be doing something very odd indeed!

"What should I do, Raziel-san?" asked Taiki, who sounded both very close and somewhat muffled at the same time.

Being crowded in with two alien creatures -- demons -- was thoroughly distracting. But Taiki’s voice drew Raziel’s attention, and from there...

Oh.

They were standing in the midst of chaotic and thundering rivers of power -- a disorienting, confusing web of interplay and constant motion. Raziel’s mind was ancient, had grown and evolved beyond the bounds of any human consciousness, but this was... a very great deal to take in all at once.

Between every blade of dry grass at Raziel’s feet ran hair-thin and anemic capillaries, feeding into thicker streams, converging into tributaries, funneling into a cascade of power that rushed away to the north and east. Other rivers collected power from aspects difficult to fathom -- droplets of energy pooled where one spindly shrub fought to outdo another for sunlight, for example. There were rivers of differing... color, for lack of a better word. Some were stronger that others, forming thicker streams: white death trickled from the dying tree nearby, from the underground bones of tiny animals, from the air itself -- funneling away like the rest of the energies.

The complexity was unfathomable, endlessly fascinating.

Even used to seeing the souls of the dead and the flows of power in the Underworld, this was ... beyond his experience. Raziel barely heard Taiki's question, the other denizens in this shadow-world ignored as he gazed out at the world--*his* world, with eyes that had never seen the true power in it before.

"Amazing ..." he breathed. "I knew, but ..." Knowing the power Nosgoth contained was not the same as *seeing* the truth of it.

Taiki began to run, as slow as a human child at first, but with a gradual increase in speed, until the ground seemed to fly beneath his small feet.

He headed for the city, since that seemed to be where they should go. Only when he came close enough that his unnatural speed might be noticed by onlookers did he take on a normal pace.

"Maybe they won't remember me?" he mumbled to his three spies. "You and Gouran are so much more splendid."

The kirin’s feet were wondrously swift, carrying them all to the outskirts of Meridian quite quickly. There were a handful of farms, some abandoned, along the way -- the crops this close to the city were poor and straggling, much the same as most of the vegetation. To Raziel’s eyes, the pale green streams of energy grew thinner, less vibrant, the closer to Meridian they ran. Other streams were twisted in upon themselves, tangled, subtly wrong. And a dim, greenish miasma -- blanketing everything -- became more noticeable with every step.

The inhabitants of Meridian had little to fear from outside the city; All great predators of the region -- Vampires were but one of many such species, after all -- had long since been exterminated. Clusters of cottages and small townships had, over the last years, expanded for some miles beyond from the city walls.

The roads were thick with mud and returning laborers. Tavern lights had come on, and a number of street-vendors peddled their wares upon the corners. The huge gates of the city proper lay just ahead.

"Hope that they do not," Raziel said grimly, taking in the changes to the landscape around them. "Go through the city gates--they should not stop you. You are obviously no threat, and if questioned, you can say you are merely running an errand for your lord. You are too clean and pretty to be a peasant brat." Looking around, he continued, "Try to find an inn near the city walls. One perhaps where the guardsmen go to drink and talk ..."

Taiki trotted that way, pausing to wrap his cowl securely over his head-- the slight points to his ears were hard to see under his long, heavy, sleek hair, but it was the color of his hair that was somewhat unusual.

He tucked himself behind some of the better-dressed travelers, and made his stride a little purposeful. He had learned court protocol and etiquette, he knew well enough how to look like a mannerly young person running an errand. And he was meek enough to be good at effacing himself when he must.

 _Be brave, be brave, be brave,_ he said silently to himself. He knew that meat might be served in an inn, and that might make him ill.

But he said nothing about it. He would do his best!

Raziel watched silently as Taiki wove his way through the crowds, ignoring the two other not-entirely-friendly presences that loomed in the shadows. His sole focus was finding Kain; little else mattered, not his own grief, or the disapproval of others.

The street was more mud than cobblestones, with the leavings of animals and humans alike littering it. The smell of such concentrated humanity was foul, though the townspeople hardly seemed to notice, coming and going and crying their wares as they would upon any other day. There was little attention paid to the small child in their midst, even with his fine clothes. For that, Raziel was grateful.

"There, to the left," he murmured, spying a group of guards, laughing and shouting amongst themselves in back-slapping good humor. They were heading in a particular direction ... "They seem to be heading for that inn." _The Black Ram_ the sign read, with a drawing of what Raziel could only suppose to be a sheep underneath the words.

"That seems to be auspicious," Taiki mumbled, though he felt just a little dizzy from all the various earthly stenches!

He followed the guards in, and was nearly knocked over by the usual innly cooking smells. But he had endured worse. They just seemed stronger because he had gotten unused to them.

"Get a seat close enough to hear them, if you can," Raziel advised. "'Ware of getting too close--the favorite pastime of drunken soldiers is drunken fights, more often than not."

"Yes," Taiki whispered, barely audible. "I know. My ruler used to be a general."

Taiki found himself a small table and sat very quietly. Gouran moved away towards the soldiers to eavesdrop, too. Because he was under the ground, the only ones who saw him move were Raziel and Taiki.

The inn was not particularly unsavory, but even hooded, a creature as prettily innocent, and well-dressed, as Taiki did attract some attention. Two men, perhaps petty thugs, murmured together. Another piggish human eyed the kirin -- the presence of a collared bodyguard standing quietly behind seemed to suggest the corpulent mortal might be a slave trader. But by and large, the inn seemed to be a favorite of the rank and file gate guardsmen. Several small groups of them roared and laughed and slammed their tankards upon the tables, as well as the pair Taiki had followed.

Conversation was varied and frequently drunken. The parentage of the watch captain seemed to be a frequent topic of speculation, the general consensus being that he’d been spawned by a leprous mule. Meridian was apparently continuing to grow swiftly, despite food shortages, riots, and heavy taxation.

Raziel stayed silent and cold, focused on listening to the humans about them. He moved a little further away from Taiki, stepping gingerly in the shadowy nothingness as he did so, and kept a weather eye out for trouble.

Taiki sat very quietly.

Sanshi watched the enemies of the ki. There were enough rusty nails in this place, and shards of broken glass from some barfight or other, that one could easily be stabbed beneath the foot of an accoster-- such a distraction could conveniently be construed as a mere misstep.

The date was gleaned from a stray fragment of a half-drunk argument -- and it immediately became obvious that if the state of a single captive vampire had ever been a common topic of conversation among simple human guardmen, it was not likely to be now. Humans that might have fought beside the Hylden against Raziel and Kain were either long dead or consigned to desk jobs. It had, after all, been some forty years since the vampires had committed their act of industrial sabotage.

There was one table of older men, each striving to outdo the other with tales worn as thin as old boot leather as they tossed dice and gambled for dull copper coins. They spoke of the city before its heyday, before the influx of strange foreigners. Few stopped to listen to their tales -- the newly-arrived Lord was of far greater interest to the general public. He was evidently from across the sea, and a member of the order that had already done so much for the city -- the secular spell-weavers who built and maintained the glyphs and their power. Uneasy rumors surrounded him -- though he was at first welcomed by the local aristocrats, some felt that Lord Hash had been gaining in prominence far too swiftly.

A harried wench noticed Taiki. “Ale’s two bits, bread and stew’s five,” she said, holding a tray of steins overhead. She was young and fairly pretty, but seemed worn. “What’ll it be?”

"...Ale and, um, bread please," Taiki said hesitantly. He wasn't hungry at all, but he had to mingle, right?

Stray coins could be found by Sanshi, he was sure.

"Forty years ..." Raziel murmured, knowing he could only be heard by the unicorn. Kain had been in their hands for forty years ... Then the name of 'Lord Hash' caught his notice. Could it be--the same Hash'ak'gik that Kain had defeated, some two centuries hence? He tried to move closer to the old humans and listen to their gossip, but was stopped short by the limits of Taiki's shadow.

The serving wench nodded and continued her rounds. A few minutes later, she returned, her tray weighted with full mugs and an assortment of foodstuffs. One tankard was set upon the table before Taiki, then a cloth-wrapped bundle, still hot. “Six bits,” she said, holding out her hand, her eyes dull with a slow and creeping kind of exhaustion.

“’An never was there such parades!” One of the older humans was gesturing wildly. “Back in the day, they’d march in the streets, dragging them cages of evil beasts fer the dungeons or the arena. Why, once I even saw meself a....”

“Oh sink it, Jauffrey. Weren’t never no such thing as a vampire here,” snapped another.

Taiki stared up at her. She was so tired!

"Here."

Sanshi had snuck coins into his pocket, so he put them all in her hand, and wished intensely that she had been chosen. Maybe they could take her along anyway. Maybe...

Gouran fell in beside Raziel and gripped his shoulder with shadowy talons, which allowed the vampire to move further away. He could draw on the kirin's power in a way that the vampire could not.

Raziel tensed at the bite of talons upon his shoulder, but after a quick suspicious glance at Gouran, endured it. He moved closer, standing near the table, his eyes fixed upon the sodden humans. *Willing* them to speak further on this mythical vampire.

Never before had he wished so devoutly that Kain had taught him the arts of delving into another's mind ...

The wench paused, eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. The city guard was becoming increasingly tense, and certainly had never had any compunctions about entrapment, in any case. She sighed briefly and counted out six of the small, square coins, and poured the rest back into the Kirin’s hand.

A good deal of information regarding Lord Hash, and the other aristocrats of the city, could be overheard. But as for vampires, mythical or otherwise -- “Sure as I sit here, thar was. Was that wot caused a riot, back in ’63.”

“Ain’t nobody want to hear your natterings again, Jauffrey,” griped another elderly human. “Hand me them dice.”

Taiki pondered. Old folks liked handing down wisdom to children, right?

Hesitantly, he rose.

Raziel ground his teeth, almost--but not quite--straining against Gouran's grip. So close--and to be derailed by petty gambling!

The elderly men looked up, startled and perhaps nervous, as the Kirin approached their table. One of them slipped his winnings into his jacket pocket. "Your master want something, pageboy?" said one.

"I'd like to hear," Taiki said politely. "Master always said that it's good for children to listen to their elders."

He did his best to project gentleness and peacefulness, which was natural to all kirin, though it could easily be shrugged off by the hardened of heart.

The men sat for a moment, watching the little unicorn. Their eyes and postures spoke of suspicion. “Well, hell,” snorted one at last, baring more gum than teeth, “I knewd somebody’d be interested in me hernia. It’s this lump, right, and it looks just like Lady Geniveve the fifth, it does.”

“Naw, not that again.” A man with a straggled beard spat on the floor. “Whaddya wanna hear, boy?”

"Good--play the child," Raziel said quietly, every muscle tense. "Ask him if vampires really exist, or some innocent question similar to it. Perhaps it will lead us to what we seek ..."

"...Really? The fifth?" Taiki asked, his eyes wide. And then added, meekly, "The stuff back in '63. It sounds so exciting..."

It really did, too, since it might be a clue!

"Young people don't get to see stuff like that anymore..."

"It were," maintained Jauffrey, to the collective sighs of his fellow gamblers. "I weren't much older than you, meself, back then. It were during the middle of the day, see, and ain't nobody knew there'd be a parade. But thar they were, half the elite guard, and they had this horse-drawn wagon and ..."

"And someone screamed 'vampire,'" said another of the elders, scratching at his chin. "Started a riot, the damn fool. It wasn't even a parade, just a bunch of soldiers escorting a cart of weapons or somesuch. But you know how folks get -- used to be, you just had to yell that word and the whole block would panic. Now... bet you don't hardly know they used to be real, boy."

"No," insisted Jauffrey. "'Cause I *seens* it, I seen what were inside that wagon."

"Really?" Taiki gasped. "Truly?"

It wasn't really feigned. The fact that vampires did exist still did awe him, even though he had one lurking in his shadow right now.

"They really were real? What did it look like?"

He really did look like an impressionable young man.

"Well," said Jauffrey, puffing his chest as if much vindicated. "It looked like a man, it did. But not all white-like, like you see in them pictures. It were brown and gray and black, mottled all over, like it could melt into the stones, you know? And such a fearsome beast it was -- them guards had put no less than five spears through its chest..."

One of the other men yawned. "Last week, when you told this here story, it were four," he pointed out, apparently annoyed at having to correct Jauffrey's retelling of his own fairytale.

Raziel snarled, a low rumbling growl as he crouched in Taiki's shadow. To talk about Kain as if he were some trophy beast! His talons rasped as his hands opened and closed impotently at his sides.

Taiki covered his mouth to stifle his shocked gasp. "...What happened after that?"

Poor Kain, to be paraded and injured so! And had he gone through a metamorphosis?

Jauffrey blinked up with rheumy eyes. "What? Din'I just tell ye there were a riot, boy?"

The more well-spoken elder shrugged. "If there was even a wagon in the first place, nobody knows where it went. Maybe the main keep."

"Mebbe the butcher's, if thar really was a dead vampire in that cart," laughed another. "I heard tell they used to skin 'em, use their hair to make helmet plumes. Me granddaddy had this fang on a chain he swore up and down was from one of 'em. Nasty beasts, vampires."

"Naw," scoffed Jauffrey. "None of you knows nuttin. It were them foreigners. Them thats taking our jobs -- they took that vampire. Took it to that thing they just finished building, back when it weren't hardly started."

The human's macabre musings on vampires were nothing new, and summarily ignored. The rest, however--Raziel moved closer, listening tensely. He had a sinking feeling that these 'foreigners' were indeed Hylden, and if so--Kain was likely imprisoned far within the depths of their citadel.

Taiki hesitated, and then asked, "What would they want with a vampire? Don't they know how dangerous they are?"

Jauffrey laughed, swilling back the last of his ale. "Who knows? Not me, I only seen what I seen. Figure it hadta be dead, anyway. Ain't nuthin going to survive when its got seven spears runnin' clean through it."

Eyes around the table rolled. "Stupid story. Now, me hernia that looks like Lady Geniveve the fifth, that one's a real story. Here, I can prove it...."

Raziel made a sound of disgust. "We need to find out where they took him ... what this 'thing' was that the Hylden built, and where." His talons itched to carve the human's flesh; not for blood, but as an object lesson. Such casual contempt of vampires deserved no less.

"Does it really?" Taiki asked again, his eyes widening-- with dismay, but hopefully the old men would just think it was awe.

 _If Lord Taiki asks these things, they may become suspicious,_ Gouran rumbled, _Since it seems to be common knowledge._

The bearded, elderly human peeled up the hem of his sweat-stiffened tunic in demonstration.

Taiki peered obligingly. "Oh, um, wow," he managed. "The resembance is just, um, amazing!"

Yeah.

To the other old man, he asked, "What did that place look like back then? It must've been different from now, right?

"Aye, that it were. Hardly any of these foreigners pacing around with their robes, taking our jobs." Jauffrey snorted. "Back then, though, they paid in good coin for their ... whatever it is. Cathedral, I guess. Me pa helped hew the stones for those buttresses, you know."

Another of the elders seemed to agree. "You'd never guess it were an empty field, up in them foothills, before they started."

"He must have been an amazing stonemason," Taiki said a little more cheerfully. Old men liked compliments.

The cathedral. Of course, it had been forty years--there was no guarantee that Kain was still there. But it was a goal, an obstacle Raziel could assail until it crumbled, as they all inevitably did. Except for Kain himself.

"The cathedral," he murmured to the shadows. "Judging from the reaction to our entrance earlier, it will likely be heavily warded. Especially if they keep Kain prisoner within its walls." Perhaps there were catacombs beneath, as there were in Avernus. If so, there may be secret entrances as well ....

 _No building is impregnable,_ Gouran said with complete assurance. _Even if it is only a crack in the walls, it will be found._

He was displeased at this adventure. Taiki was too much at risk. But he could not defy his master's will.

 _Is there anything else that the ki must do in this place?_ Sanshi asked; her voice was low and growling and ominous.

Taiki could say nothing; so close, it would only arouse suspicion. Only in his kirin form could he speak mind-to-mind.

Unmoved by the latent threat posed by Gouran and Sanshi's disapproval, Raziel scanned the main room, assessing the likelihood of obtaining more information. He had given Taiki the chance to refuse this task, and the unicorn had taken it regardless; should harm befall him because of it, Raziel refused to take on the burden of guilt for decisions made by another.

However, a quick glance showed that the hour had grown late and the taproom's inhabitants progressively more sodden. There was a makeshift arm-wrestling contest in one corner, an argument involving a previous affair starting in another, and a smoky, odiferous din over the entirety of the crowd. It was unlikely that they would find anything further of use this night here, at least.

"I misdoubt that these wretches will have much more to say than has already been said," Raziel growled back. "Too much time has passed for them to be of further use to us." Humans had such pathetically short memories.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go," Taiki said promptly to the old men. "Thank you very much for telling me your stories and, um, showing me your hernia!"

Sanshi and Gouran said nothing.

A few of the elders nodded in farewell, one lifted his stein, another marked Taiki's departure with a resounding belch.

The pair of common alley thieves followed after the little unicorn.

Outside the tavern, night had fallen. Unusually for a town of Nosgoth, the streets were brightly lit -- the pale green glow emanated from tall, iron-wrought lamps. Through Taiki's shadow, thick channels of noxious green power could be seen, flowing buried beneath the earth, feeding into each of the streetlamps and many of the surrounding houses. Guards patrolled in pairs, eyes wary. Some of them wore faintly glowing, glyph-inscribed armor.

Raziel's sharp eyes picked out Taiki's pursuers quickly enough. Common footpads, nothing more; they were attempting to appear casual, but the way their eyes followed the boy said otherwise. Only the presence of nearby guards had kept them from ambushing the boy already.

"Behind," Raziel said to Gouran and Sanshi. "Thieves ... the boy is their mark. Though they likely will not move until we come to a more deserted place ..." He eyed the green-glowing lanterns and glyphs with a small amount of concern. He did not want to see if Taiki's magick would stand up against Hylden wards--not here and now, at least.

 _Yes._ And Gouran drifted away from them, towards the thieves. Such things could easily be trapped in a shadow and swiftly devoured.

Taiki shuddered. "Where do we go now?" he whispered.

"The cathedral," Raziel said firmly. "Even if it is not where Kain is being held, it seems to be the seat of their power. I know not whether a child like yourself could gain entrance openly, but even if you cannot, we must see what their defenses are."

"...Could an animal?" gulped the kirin.

"If by animal you mean unicorn, then the answer is yes. They would most assuredly offer you entrance--and shortly after that chains and imprisonment. The Hylden would be overcome with glee if they could obtain a creature with power such as you possess ..." Raziel said grimly.

Taiki shuddered, daunted by the task ahead of them. He'd already been coveted, kidnapped, and attacked; it seemed like those kinds of people were everywhere.

"Let's go," he whispered. Before he lost his nerve.

"The cathedral should be near the heart of the city, from what I remember," Raziel said, ignoring the unicorn's fears. His warnings had been true enough, but that would not stop him from accomplishing his goal, with or without Taiki. "In my time it was a ruin, so I am not intimate with its depths. With any luck, you should be able to approach its environs without being challenged, at least." He watched through the shadows as the hapless thieves were stalked by an unseen Gouran.

Taiki turned towards the center of the city and let the evening press of people take him where it should.

Running everywhere might attract too much attention, so he kept his pace unremarkably swift.

When the moment was opportune, Gouran snatched up one thief and dragged him beneath the earth. Out of sight for a few moments, he quickly devoured his prey.

The city was vast and sprawling, and finding its heart was ultimately a fruitless task. Raziel had last seen this particular city some four hundred years in the future, and like all devices of human making, the city would change even more between now and then. Constrained on one side by the sea, the city had nowhere to grow but up into the foothills of the bordering mountains.

Cathedrals there were aplenty, but all of human make. It took Raziel's memories of the Hylden cathedral's rocky surroundings, plus occasional distant glimpses of twisting spires, to eventually lead them up rutted roads to the corner of a massive edifice, relatively newly built.

It was unmistakable, once found. It was something like a massive dome in shape, and lit with green and buttressed in intricate arches, the building was perhaps the largest in Meridian. All the conduits, the thick tubes of power that gave the streetlights their glow, converged underneath this building. The miasma of energy was almost choking here, a thick and rancid smog that seemed to throttle the pathways of the mind.

Perhaps characteristically, local human aristocrats had moved into the area, with their large manors and fancifully gilded carriages, and Taiki did not, upon casual inspection, appear out of place.

"This place is even more noisome than I remember it being," Raziel said in disgust, unimpressed by the gilded trappings about them. Perhaps it was simply due to being a vampire, or perhaps it was something deeper, but something about this area felt *wrong*, felt twisted. Even inside Taiki's shadow, it almost seemed as if the miasma of the Hylden's magicks reached out to coat his skin with an unwholesome patina.

Shaking himself free of such fanciful thoughts, Raziel refocussed his attention. "The Hylden are arrogant--they allow the humans to build right up to their doorstep. That will make it easier for us to move unseen."

"What do we do now?" whispered the kirin, who did his best not to retch at those magicks' foetid reek.

There were several options -- the edifice had great wide gates in front, posted with human sentries. The building was tall, though not unscaleable -- perhaps there were windows above. The miasma of green might make more arcane methods of entry, such as Raziel's ability to phase into mist, somewhat difficult... but there was no way to know until one tried.

"It is a risk, but we could try to bluff our way past the main gates," Raziel said thoughtfully, taking in the sentries, and knowing there would be glyphs and wards beyond them. "Or we and your demons can scour the walls for another way--a drain, perhaps, or a secret exit of some kind. Or ... " He hesitated, misliking what he was about to say. "Or I can leave my body in your care--and go in alone."

Taiki was quiet as he stared up at the citadel.

Sanshi wanted them to all just go back home, he knew. Gouran...

What should he do? Sweat beaded on his brow. He was no general. Combat was not his forte. He'd be a hindrance...

He clenched his fist. "Gouran," he said softly. "Please find an entrance, if you can."

And though he worded it as a request, he steeled his will and brought it down on a demon who was just, in the end, as reluctant to risk his master as Sanshi was.

Gouran shifted away to do just that.

It did not take Gouran long. The energy conduits under the streets were accessed by tunnels and passages, ranging from narrow tubes to wide, vaulted hallways. There were sewers and the like as well -- the Hylden, it seemed, could little stand the reek of their human servants, and had installed some kind of drainage system in this part of the city. But those were fouler even than the energy access lines, and less direct, besides. A round steel plate, down a nearby alley, led to part of the underground access network.

Once Gouran had reported his findings, it did not take them long to reach it. A quick glance showed no one about, and Raziel stepped forward. "Release me, Taiki, and I shall see if this obstacle can be dealt with."

"Let him go," Taiki said to Gouran, and the demon returned Raziel to the surface.

Raziel's ability to see the green tendrils of the Hylden magick around them faded as he did so, though the foul miasma it left behind did not abate. Blinking as he emerged from Taiki's shadow, Raziel looked around, then moved swiftly to the metal plate. It had been fastened to the stone by some manner of metal hasps and bolts; easy enough to break.

Reaching out, Raziel dug talons into the join of metal and stone, carving rents in them. Then, with a quick heave, he yanked it upwards, shearing off bolts and lifting away the plate in one motion. The sharp screech of broken metal seemed penetratingly loud to his ears, and he crouched for a moment, listening to see if any would come to investigate. The humans, however, seemed deaf to it, and far too interested in their own affairs.

The hole was dark and unwelcoming. The ambient light lit it only a short ways -- there seemed to be nothing there but a metal ladder stretching down into a stygian abyss. The air wafting from below was cool, and smelled faintly of the Hylden's dry, reptilian scent.

Taiki peered in. "Down the rabbit-hole," he whispered, almost to himself.

Raziel also peered downwards, night-adapted eyesight picking out the details of masonry and ladder, but still unable to see what might await them at the bottom. "I will take point," he said firmly. "Unless you would rather remain here?"

"I'm going with you," Taiki murmured resolutely.

The ladder was not a long one. Several bodylengths down, the passage opened into a wide hallway, a lead-wrapped tube stretching down the length of one wall. From outside Taiki's shadow, the lead appeared unremarkable, but it was of similar diameter as the channels of Hylden power that had corded beneath the earth's surface.

A short walk took them to the where the passage passed under the street above. A sudden ruckus came from above -- feet pounding, armor clanking. One of the patrols must have been wearing armor of Hylden make, and now that Raziel was outside Taiki's protective shadow... it would, in all likelihood, be only a matter of time before the open grate covering was detected.

Raziel had frozen instinctively at the sudden clatter of sound. As it faded, he frowned. "It is a pity we could not disguise our ingress," he murmured, looking back the way we came. "It has the potential to make our retreat ... difficult." He had set a teleportation endpoint outside the city, before he had trusted himself to Taiki's shadow--but even that might be stymied by the wards if the Hylden were truly roused to alarm. He glanced down at Taiki's worried face. "Let us make haste, then, before trouble finds us."

The tunnel had narrowed somewhat, though still giving ample room to move. The faint blue glow of the wraithblade's energies, curling about his arm, gave Raziel all the light he needed to see as he moved on, deeper into the bowels of the Hylden's so-called 'cathedral'.

"I can take us back," Taiki whispered, "When we find Kain-san. We shouldn't need to find our way back out."

He trotted alongside the vampire. He felt breathless and dizzy and a little sick, as if he had been wading in filth and blood. Raziel was always tinged with the latter; it could not be helped, and Taiki did not hold it against him.

Though perhaps it was still because of a young kirin's naivete; had he seen Raziel slaughter innocent humans, would he still have been so charitable?

But the miasma polluting the city wore on him, as did the fact that this was not a world in which he had been born. Still, he followed without complaint, his shallow breaths the only betrayal of his discomfort.

They travelled for quite some time, with only the sound of their own footsteps and Taiki's panted breaths to accompany them. Sometimes, distantly, there was the drip of water or the muffled sound of movement above them, carried through the acoustic vagaries of the stone. Otherwise there was nothing--no movement, no life, not even of rats or creeping insects. Just a sprawling warren of tunnels, empty and seemingly unused.

Eventually, they reached a dead end, in the form of a ledge that opened into a vaulted room, and a sheer drop downward. Green-glowing lanterns hung on the walls, and Raziel dropped into a crouch as he moved to the edge of the opening and peered downward.

Taiki fell to his knees and peeked over the edge... and surrepetitiously wiped his sweat-damp brow.

"This ... may well be a problem." There were no bars blocking their access, nor wards--but there might as well have been. They were at least forty feet up, crouched in a small dark opening next to a large set of pipes that ran exposed down a wall. Without wings, they could not glide down, and there was no way to climb down the wall without being spotted by the Hylden below.

And there *were* Hylden below--at least three that Raziel could see. One demon seemed to be of the warrior variety, larger and brawnier by far than its compatriots. The other two seemed to be scholars or artisans of some sort, working with the intricate web of machinery that lined the walls of the room, throwing levers and consulting over scrolls that glowed green with inscribed runes.

"Gouran," Taiki said quietly, and the toutetsu once again reappeared, this time in the guise of a huge red infernal wolf.

"He can carry us."

"Unseen?" Raziel asked skeptically. "I have little doubt we could defeat these Hylden, but it only takes one to raise an alarm--and then our efforts will be for nought."

Taiki bit his lip, and then grabbed Raziel's arm. "Tell me where we should go next."

The chimney-like tube they had exited into seemed to be something of an air shaft, for ventilation of the sprawling underground complex. Below were the masses of Hylden, as Raziel had noted. Above, however, there were more dark openings, more tunnels exiting into the shaft. Climbing or flying up, into the less technological regions of the Hylden's domain might be safer than heading down. On the other hand, it was possible that Raziel and Gouran might be swift enough to slaughter every creature below before the alarm was raised, permitting more leisurely examination of whatever task at which the Hylden toiled.

Raising his eyes upward, Raziel spotted the other tunnels. "Can Gouran get us up to one of those?" he asked, pointing. "Swiftly enough that we are unlikely to be seen?"

Taiki nodded.

When both of them had climbed on, Gouran leaped silently into the air. Because he needed no wings, there was no sound of flapping and no wind to mark their passage.

Though he was not quite as swift as a kirin, he was very fast, running on the air as if it were solid ground.

Raziel held on tight, leaning low over the demon-wolf's back and doing his best to dig talons only into fur and not flesh. It did not take them long--mere seconds, and a flash of red--before they were at the new tunnel's mouth, safely hidden in the shadows.

"Back into the warren, one supposes," Raziel said quietly. "Normally dungeons would be underneath such a structure, but with the Hylden--who knows?"

"I've never been in a dungeon before," Taiki mumbled somewhat sheepishly.

 _Do they prefer the high places, or the low?_ Gouran inquired. _Wherever they place their prisoners is probably opposite that._

"I do not know," Raziel said after a moment's thought. "My encounters with them have not been lengthy. They were winged once, like the Ancients, but now ... they have been exiled for so long from Nosgoth that little trace of them was left. Until this time, it seems ...." Kain had been right to worry--Raziel had not realized what inroads the Hylden had made into Nosgoth during this time. They would have their work cut out for them, if they hoped to push them back into their own dimension ...

"...Down," Taiki said with a sort of hesitant firmness.

Raziel lifted his eyebrows at Taiki's uncharacteristic decisiveness, but did not argue the point. One direction was as good as another, at this point.

Sliding off Gouran's back, he took the lead once again, heading up into the shaft. This one was a great deal narrower; there was ample room for a boy Taiki's size, but Raziel soon found himself uncomfortably cramped, hunched and hissing under his breath every time his wing-tips scraped the walls.

"You should get back into my shadow," Taiki piped up softly. "I can fit better."

He felt very tired, and thought that hissing might be very satisfying, but he didn't.

Stubbornly, Raziel shook his head, teeth set. He was a vampire lord, firstborn of Kain's blood--no matter how meaningless that might seem now. He would not cower in Taiki's shadow.

"Just until we get past this narrow part," Taiki persisted. "So your wings can heal."

As they moved through the narrow passage, it seemed as if they approached more inhabited areas. There were glyphs inscribed on the walls from time to time, and though these did not appear to react to Raziel's presence, he knew full well there were others that likely would.

There were sounds echoing through the shaft now, distant hammering and shouts, muffled roaring. The gradient also changed, now sloping downwards.

Raziel stifled a growl, even as he hunched down further to move upward. "I do not require your pity, child," he said, biting off the words--then came face to face with a sudden bend in the tunnel, and another junction. Almost as if to mock him, this tunnel was *much* too small for an armor-clad and winged vampire to fit.

Taiki bit his lip. "It's not that at all, Raziel-san. I'm useless in a fight. If you're not at your best, you can't protect us. And if something happens to me, Gouran can't move."

The sounds of distant habitation -- and a great deal of activity -- were most assuredly emanating from the smaller, down-sloping passage. From the larger, upward-branching shaft came, distantly, the scents of cooking foods and the faint warmth of habitation -- perhaps a barracks.

Manfully resisting the urge to slam his fist into the stony wall in frustration, Raziel crouched downward, until he could shift around and meet Taiki eye-to-eye. "It seems we have little choice," he said with ill grace. "Very well."

Impulsively, Taiki hugged the vampire, mindful of those painful wings. "Thank you for letting me help, Raziel-san!"

Raziel reflexively flinched backwards at the boy's sudden embrace, blinking in startlement as he found himself --hugged. What *was* the proper response to being hugged by a unicorn? Especially if one was a vampire? After a moment, he raised a hand and patted Taiki awkwardly on the back, keeping talons well away from fragile skin.

" Indeed ... you are ... welcome."

Taiki didn't seem bothered by the awkwardness-- it had been the same in Tai, too. Nobody knew how to deal with an affectionate kirin, apparently!

He stepped back, and nodded to Gouran, who took the vampire back into Taiki's shadow.

And then pressed on through the tight passage.

To all of their vision, now, those currents of sickly power were oppressively obvious.

When at last the passage opened, it was onto a massive space, perhaps the size of a stadium. The tunnel ended high up along one wall, with a precipitous drop below.

The glow of green was vibrantly intense, pulsating from an archway many stories tall set into an enormous arcane contraption against the far side. Through the swirling emerald energy emerged struggling figures -- demons, hauling crates and boxes, great lumbering beasts chained to the hand of smaller, skeletal figures. The huge space was stacked with crates, crowded with separate pens of chained demons and terrified humans. Glyphs were everywhere throughout the space; interspersed stations were the hubs of activity. Even as they watched, a score of sobbing slaves were led into the swirling green portal.

The great arena was surely set just beneath the dome of the cathedral above. It could serve no other purpose than as a staging area.

Raziel was growling again, this time without even realizing it as he took in the scene before them. "If only I had an army to call upon," he said, every line of his body intent upon the Hylden portal. "Destroy this, and we'd cripple the Hylden in one swift stroke!"

Taiki fell to his knees, so shocked by that anguished tableau that he could no longer move.

"Gouran," he breathed. He could not help it. He could not allow such suffering to continue.

The demon prowled towards that portal, hiding himself deep in the stone but nonetheless headed straight for that source of power.

Gouran moved like smoke, like the shadows themselves. He ghosted through stones, through earth... and past the glyphs inscribed upon the wall.

Attuned primarily to detect the magic of the Ancients, the wards were sluggish to respond. But respond they did.

A fine grid -- a net of fiery green strands -- sprang into existence, forming a sphere first around Gouran, then another around the entire chamber. Distant skeletal figures shouted, pointed, some darted for the glyph stations. Demons howled, burst their chains... and swarmed towards the place Taiki crouched hidden.

"Damnation!" Raziel hissed. "Call him back, boy--we must retreat, or be overhwelmed!" He could not even demand to be released from Taiki's shadow--there simply was not the *room* for him to stand, much less fight!

"Back into the tunnel--they are alerted, but the demons are too large to follow us!"

But Taiki's hands began forming symbols. His forehead glowed with a blazing light, and a sudden, strong wind gusted through the cavern.

 _"Rin, Byou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zen, Kyou!"_ he shouted strongly. The sword seal, used to bind demons.

He could never have stood up for just himself. But the sobbing of the slaves made it impossible for him to retreat. He could not leave them behind!

Gouran roared, manifesting in his most formidable shape: a huge, red-eyed _oni_. He drew on both his own power and Taiki's to attack the seal.

Before Taiki, the demons scuttling or flapping towards him fell in ranks, in masses, wrapped in the arcane bindings of the unicorn's powers. Dozens fell paralyzed to the ground, to be trampled beneath the feet of their brutish fellows, hundreds of them, surging into the room from a handful of huge ground-level entrances. But the lull in the tide of demons gave Taiki a few moments to direct his full attention to Gouran's fight.

The net-weave around the maddened Oni shattered. It burst outward in a flare of energy the cage had never been engineered to contain, sending shards of green-tinged power flying like shrapnel, to scythe into demons and fragile Hylden... and slaves alike. Green ichor slicked the floor, bright red blood spattered up the walls.

Taiki screamed shrilly, his concentration breaking as blood flew everywhere.

But Gouran headed straight for his master, refusing to obey anything when the kirin was distracted and in danger and unable to exert his will over the toutetsu.

"Gouran!" Raziel shouted, knowing the demon-creature could hear him, even if no one else could. "Can you take your master and retreat?"

 _You cannot be left behind,_ the demon stated grimly. He swept them all up and dragged them back, though Taiki screamed and struggled wildly enough for a kirin who was already becoming faint.

The woven network of vile green power -- the one that surrounded the entire chamber, passing through solid stone -- likewise shattered outward as Gouran forced his way though, dragging them all back down the tunnel system. Slivers of the broken magic clattered like glass on the stone floor of the ventilation shaft, ricocheting down towards where they'd entered.

Their sole warning came with the thunk of a piece into demonflesh, the angry roar of some creature in the darkness ahead.

Where the tunnel should have opened up into the first, large chimney, there were only brief glimpses of light -- demons swarmed the opening, clawing at the stones, the most slender beginning to wriggle into the tunnel.

Raziel hissed a curse between his teeth at the sight, the wraithblade alive and spitting angrily upon his arm. "Can you teleport us away without your master's aid?" he demanded. "If not, we needs must cut our way through so that I can be free to get us away!"

Once they were away from the blood, Taiki's senses began to clear. He suddenly squirmed out of Gouran's hands-- no, it was as if they had never closed on him at all.

The toutetsu growled in frustration as Taiki loosened the clasps of his clothes, which fell swiftly away-- he could not lay a hand on his master to gather him close again.

"Tell me which way we should go," the kirin breathed to Raziel, and transformed-- an intense golden light filled the tunnel, leaving behind a very small kirin, who tottered on hooves that were like a minuscule version of Raziel's own.

From both sides of the tunnel, the roars of demonkind could be heard, and the rumbling grate of mortal and stone scraping from the walls as the most slender of the beasts began to drag themselves inside. Speed might well be essential -- fortunately Taiki had it in spades.

Echoing the toutetsu's frustrated growl, Raziel said, "We seem to be out of options in any case. Run for the side tunnel, boy--and pray that it does not lead us into another trap!"

Taiki _ran_. If he had been a car, he would have left a blaze of flames behind him. Had he been in full control of himself, and not weakened by the blood smell, he would have run faster still.

The tunnels whizzed by at a speed that made it difficult to tell where one was, but Taiki found that tunnel and hurled himself down the passage.

The walls of the new, upward-slowing tunnel blurred past. Gouran, swift as shadows, made short work of the grate blocking the end, and Taiki burst out... into the center of a guardroom barracks.

Men, half-clothed or armored in glyph-covered steel, shouted and staggered as Taiki darted between them in a gunmetal-gray streak. A scrabbling bound took him out into a broad hallway and down a corridor. More glyphknighs clanked into view. There was an archway, just to the side, leading to some manner of kitchens.

Taiki cleared the guardsmen in a single wild leap.

And like a bull in a china shop, Taiki's frantic flight and skidding feet sent dishes and food -- and cutlery -- flying. Firefly sparkles trailed behind him in shimmering skeins that quickly withered in the oppressive atmosphere.

There had to be a way down. They had to find Kain!

The speed would have been dizzying, at least to a lesser creature. To a winged vampire accustomed to diving headlong through the air, it was simply reasurring to know that the demons were far outmatched--at least when it came to speed!

Crouching in the shadowy dimension, Raziel snarled silently at glyphknights and servants alike as Taiki continued to run. "Calm your panic, Taiki--use your senses," he ordered with enforced calm, hoping the boy would respond to it. "Can you hear or scent Kain? Or anything unusual that might lead us to him--or a place of safety?"

What had been an orderly, precise mess-hall kitchen, up until moments ago, was rather rudely interrupted by half a dozen armored guards, hot on the heels of a small ungulate. The dark gray fawn -- goat? It was moving too fast to be certain -- ripped through the kitchen, tearing up tiles, hooves striking showers of sparks. It skidded sideways into a stack of pewter steins and dishes before bounding away.

Metal and food scraps fell everywhere with a cacophony of clanging and squishing, and shocked kitchen staff looked up just in time to witness the armed guards charge in, swords drawn. Massively armored, the knights were highly resistant to injury but often couldn't view their surroundings particularly well.

It was possible that dinner would not be on schedule this evening.

Raziel's words cleared the kirin's head a little. _Sorry!_ he called to the vampire-- and the hapless kitchen staff.

Beyond the kitchen, he paused for one brief moment, one forehoof poised, nostrils quivering, large ears twitching this way and that, liquid gray eyes showing white.

He tested the air, trying to catch Kain's scent, trying to see traces of his aura.

And then he was off again, pulled towards that elusive presence.

The hallways and rooms formed a warren, blocked at points by groups of armed guards or the sheeting energy of glyphwards. But none of the obstacles prevented Taiki's progress deeper into the structure, up several flights of stairs, to hallways lavishly carpeted and hung with tapestries and strange alien devices that blinked with lights. If one were of a suspicious mindset, it might in fact seem as if the little unicorn was being... herded.

A long, coiling ramp lead up to a strange room atop the cathedral's central dome, something like a circular observatory. The tiled floor formed a huge, elegantly detailed mosaic -- blue oceans, green terrain, duskier swamplands -- in incredible detail, almost seeming to move, very slowly. The curved walls and ceiling were formed of a strange, green-tinted glass, and the dull and creeping miasma of Hylden energy was all but tangible here.

There was a table placed in the center of the room. A figure leaned casually against the heavy, stone surface. Green hummed in the creature's eyes, though it did not look up. Cooly, calmly, it was using a small blade to peel a long, narrow strip of rind from a strange, fist-sized fruit.

Taiki skidded to a stop. This was Kain! They had found Kain!

But... something was wrong. The aura was strange. And what was... in his hand, that couldn't be...

He did not release Raziel from his shadow, not yet. He had been fooled by friendly faces before.

 _...Kain-san? It's time to go home..._

"No ..." Raziel breathed in dismay, frozen where he stood. This was ... he had seen this before. Had *felt* this before. Kain was older--of course he was--and resembled more the sire Raziel knew than the fledgeling he had been ... but the Hylden had not been satisfied with merely keeping him prisoner.

"They *dare*!" Raziel snarled. "How dare they pollute Kain with their foul possession!" To use the Scion of Balance like a suit of borrowed clothing--it was not to be borne!

Hash'ak'gik raised his eyes at last as the unicorn's hooves clattered to a stop on the worldmap tile. The body indeed was Kain's -- a little changed, skin faintly streaked with the minor armor common to most subadult vampires and the muscles beneath it perhaps very subtly different, rewired. Dark red juice began to drip from the fruit, staining his long-clawed hands. The scent of it was sweet and thick with the tang of copper.

"Taiki," the voice was produced by Kain's throat, but it too was changed, though for far different reasons. "Imagine my surprise. We never expected you to come here yourself -- one of the others, perhaps, but not you."

Taiki began to tremble all over. _...Egg-fruit..._ he whispered. A foetus from his own world.

The smell was blood. The baby in the fruit must be dying!

He did not have any time to wonder how the Hylden could have gotten near a Riboku, whose divine blessing repelled evil creatures away.

Raziel snarled in rage, pressing forward. He could smell the blood, but had little idea of the true nature of the ... egg-fruit? It did not matter. Kain was worse than a prisoner--he was polluted, possessed. And for all his anger and fear, Raziel was all too aware of the fact that he knew of no way to remove a Hylden from his unwitting host, short of death.

"'Ware, Taiki," he growled. "This is likely their lord--perhaps even Hash'ak'gik himself. He is powerful, and fiendishly clever." He did not urge Taiki to free him--not yet. Better for the Hylden to remain unknowing of their true strength.

The repercussions of the fact that the Hylden now held an object from Taiki's dimension went far beyond the fruit or even its nature, of course. It meant that the Hylden now had the capacity to reach other planets, other worlds. And given that the passage of time could be variable between planes, it was impossible to say for how long they'd been doing so. The Hylden, or the creatures under their possession, could have been loose upon Taiki's world for days... or decades.

"Alas, this body cannot enjoy these properly," Kain mused, a trickle of pink tracing down his wrist as a neat curl of rind fluttered to the floor. "Sadly, the concentration of monosaccharides is too high, and that of heme proteins far too low. Such a pity. I, after all, find them quite delicious."

Kain arched an eyebrow at Taiki's horrified expression. He used the tip of the dagger to hook something from the table beside him, lifting it a little -- a leather collar, meant for a slender neck. "Shall we dispense with the formalities? Produce aside, your planet interests us little. You, on the other hand...."

Taiki's vision wavered. He took a step forward. He had to get Kain out of here, had to dispel the possession, somehow.

He could not release Raziel, it would have been foolish right then.

With fading strength, he transformed heedless of his own nudity. He had to recite the exorcism incantation, he...

The blood-smell from the fruit was overpowering, and the world began to tilt sideways.

The thing within Kain inclined his head, thoughtfully. He wiped the dagger clean upon the collar, idly smearing tacky-wet fluids around the inside. There was power threaded over and through the plain leather, individual lines woven into complex and fathomless shapes, so that an intense green miasma seemed to cling to the device.

"I likewise expected more argument," said Kain wryly, laying the fruit and knife aside. With dripping hands, he picked up the leather. Taiki's nudity seemed of no interest at all to the Hylden -- it stepped forward, manipulating a hidden catch to open the collar.

Raziel pressed forward, placing himself in front of the fallen boy. "Taiki," he said, calm and cold. "Release me to deal with this. Gouran--protect your master. Remove him from this place if you must. The Hylden cannot hold me--but I do not wish to think of the power they might gain should they take possession of a unicorn."

Taiki fell to his knees, his head swimming with confusion and doubt and faintness.

 _If he loses consciousness,_ Gouran said grimly, _I cannot move._

Kain's body passed through Raziel's point of perception, and the Hylden paused suddenly, eyes narrowed. But filtered through Kain's senses, the Hylden's abilities were likely muted. Kain knelt before the fallen boy. With the impersonal care of a creature determined not to damage a most fascinating subject, long-taloned fingers slipped the leather strip around Taiki's slender throat.

"Damnation," Raziel said, equally grim. He had not liked this idea from the start--and now he knew why! Fainting unicorns were little help in battle, it seemed.

The wraithblade flared brighter as he concentrated, pulling his power to him. Not *quite* like teleportation, nor *quite* like shifting to the Underworld--he felt for the edges of Taiki's shadow, and then *pushed* against them. He struggled against the shifting barrier for a moment, pulling more power to use against them; then, as the collar went on, Taiki's strength suddenly ebbed, and Raziel was stepping through the shadows and into the lighted world.

He did not give the Hylden challenge, nor any kind of warning. He had seen the folly of that with Janos. He attacked silently instead, forcing away his qualms and bringing the wraithblade down upon Kain's back.

As soon as the blood touched his skin, Taiki's whole body shuddered, and he went limp.

Gouran and Sanshi were frozen, locked into the kirin's shadow as the source of their power was suddenly switched off.

The wraithblade's scream was the Hylden's sole alert. And then Kain's scream joined it, echoed it, as the piercing blade of energy seared down his back and the fragile, ornate Hylden armor he wore. Purple-red vampire blood -- darker than before -- splashed over the ground and Taiki both as Kain twisted, face a feral mask, eyes vividly glowing, the hatred at the sight of Raziel palpable. In his hand was suddenly a sword -- not the Reaver, simply a blade wreathed in flames and heat.

Ignoring the dire wound that split the armor down his back and all but crippled his left arm, Kain dove to the side and stabbed at Raziel.

Raziel dodged out of the way--not easily, but easier than it could have been. For all the Hylden's power, it still inhabited the body of a fledgling, not an Ancient this time; he could not hope to match the strength and speed that Raziel possessed. Of far greater concern was the Hylden's own magick--and the likelihood of reinforcements. Raziel needed to end this battle swiftly.

Diving and rolling underneath another strike, Raziel fetched up against Taiki's prone form. He took precious seconds to slip the talons of his off-hand underneath the leather--and with a harsh tug, snapped the collar, flinging it away in disgust.

But Taiki could not awaken, covered in blood as he was: his stupor would not lift until he was washed clean.

Indeed, though it was difficult to hear over the clash of blades, feet were already scraping over the stones of the winding ramp that led to the chamber. Not the sound of the boots of the guardsmen that had been chasing Taiki... rather the scrabbling of long talons upon rock.

Kain cast his hand out, summoning a concussive blast of power. It was not so strong as Raziel had seen employed at least once before; Kain's left hand was clumsy and only weakly drew forth the power. But the blast struck Raziel and Taiki both, squarely. Kain leaped after, blade raised in a fiery arc.

The stunning force was one of Kain's mageworkings, not the Hylden's. It was quite possible that channeling a very great deal of Hylden magic -- inimical to vampires -- through so young a vampire body might damage it beyond repair.

Raziel took the brunt of the blast, just by the virtue of their bodies' positioning, which sent them both skidding across the floor. It was weak indeed, compared to what he was used to, and a savage smile tugged at his lips as he rolled to his feet and met Kain's charge, wraithblade humming angrily in the air.

Their swords met--and rebounded off one another, the clash of magickal energies snapping and reverberating between. This time, there were no distractions--Raziel gave no quarter, pressing forward with slash after slash, beating down Kain's defense with his greater strength and the wraithblade's hungry magick.

Taiki did not even twitch; he remained crumpled where he had been flung, like some thin, broken doll.

The wraithblade howled as it met the flaming sword, sending arcs of lightning down the length of steel each time they clashed. The wraithblade was doing more than simply repelling the other weapon -- it was consuming it, drinking down the magery within, the flames of Kain's sword sputtering and fading with every strike.

Kain was swifter than he ought to be -- faster and stronger by far than any fledgling of less than several centuries' age had a right to be. He fought in an alien style, every movement guided by an immortal that had brought dimensions to its heel.

Raziel was better.

Several things happened at once.

The wraithblade met Kain's flaming sword once more, skittering down the length, and in Kain's hand, the blade disintegrated, simply fell apart. The wraithblade tore through the hiltguard, ripping open the back of Kain's hand, slicing away a thick layer of muscle all down his forearm. Demons reached the top of the ramp, their process impeded by their bulk and the press of their own numbers. And Kain called out ancient words, gathering to himself the power to fuel Spirit Wrack.

Raziel, however, had not been idle in his strategems. In the moment's space granted him by the Hylden's summoning of his spell, his off-hand whipped out the wand sheathed next to his scabbard and pointed it at the form of his sire.

"Petrificus totalus!"

Raziel's alien magic struck true, leaving Kain's muscles unnaturally paralyzed. The glow of possession in his eyes, however, did not dissipate -- the will behind them was still active, bestial with its hatred.

Demons struggled with each other, slavering in their haste to reach Raziel. Some of them broke free of their fellows, long talons clacking on the tiles.

Kain's spell was completed not by him, but by a pulse of energy, forced through the unnatural link between Hash'ak'gik and the vampire's body. The vile green wash of power ate at Kain's white, bloodspattered flesh, like liquid corrosion for the brief moment of exposure. And then the tight little packet of magic was released, twisted with Hylden magic, but streaking for Raziel nevertheless.

Raziel had a moment of relief and triumph as the spell took hold--then his eyes widened as the spell, familiar yet twisted, ripped its way through the air. Frantically, he tried to dodge, twisting out of the way and interposing the wraithblade in between as the spell struck.

It hurt--searing agony like a million white-hot needles burrowing underneath his skin, down to the marrow of his bones. Raziel did not scream--but only because his teeth were clamped shut, frozen in a rictus of pain.

Despite the backlash, however--the spell failed, unable to gain a hold on the strange and ancient power of Raziel's soul. The wraithblade hummed, its glow brightening as it fed on the fading magick--and Raziel forced himself to move, to respond to the demons' attack despite the fading echoes of pain in his flesh.

Kain had tumbled upon his side, muscles unable to catch him. The Hylden had never encountered magic such as Raziel employed, and now they turned upon it, learning, very slowly plucking through the unfamiliar weave. The spell held, and seemed likely to hold for some time to come, but eventually the magic would be assimilated as was everything else that came into the Hylden's grasp.

Lightning shot wildly across the chamber as one of the tall blue demons clattered forward, furious. A great red demon bellowed, jaws spewing flame even as it gutted a venomous green beast whose bulk blocked the passage to the narrow ramp.

Shoving the wand back into its scabbard, Raziel dived out of the way of another lightning strike that shook the chamber and left a wide scorched portion of flooring where he had once stood. His hand closed about the hilt of his sabre, and drawing upon the materia there, he flung up a Wall--a shimmering globe of protection against physical and magical attacks alike. The different magicks were draining his reserves, but he had no choice--staying to fight the demons would avail him nothing when his resources were finite, and theirs were most certainly not!

Coming out of his crouch, he sprinted across to where Taiki still lay. Grabbing the limp form roughly--he had no time for gentleness, he ducked a talon-swipe, and whipped claws across the face of the aggravated blue demon, sending it staggering backwards. Hardly a disabling stroke, but enough room to allow him to dive to Kain's side--which he did.

Demons crowded the arcing shield of repulsion, driving power-wrapped talons into it, their attacks a constant drain upon the magic. Slavering, the beasts threw themselves against it time and time again. "Ra'Ziel!" Their screams were hissing, as abrasive as the sound of a blade clearing scabbard, maws packed with teeth garbling the word. The wall began to buckle.

Kain was, as yet, unresponsive.

Raziel skidded to a stop at Kain's side, falling to his knees as he did so. Ignoring the green-glowing eyes that still stared at him with fury and hate, he wrapped an arm about the younger vampire's limp form, pulling him upright and embracing him roughly.

The Wall began to collapse as Raziel closed his eyes. They would only have one chance; one chance to escape, to break through any wards before they were reinforced. Pulling together all the power he possessed, he threw it around the three of them, yanking the spell into being.

With a flare of actinic white, they vanished.

Their passage down the pathways of magic was not an easy one. Space warped unnaturally, painfully, twisting skeins of void and existence trying to tear the three bodies apart from one another, as if to tumble them all beneath the surface of some unseen river.

But Raziel's thick-woven sheets of magic held. All three bodies tumbled out into the moonlit night, into a meadow of dry and yellowing grass. Insects buzzed up, startled by the sudden appearance, and a few tiny animals rustled as they fled the disturbance. But the green miasma was inconsequential here, in comparison with the pall that perfused the Hylden stronghold.

There were, however, no streams or other sources of water, at least not nearby.

Taiki's battered body did not move from where it had fallen. Scratched, scraped, bruised, bloodied and broken in some few places -- a kirin's bones were hollow, and just as prone to damage -- it seemed lifeless, save for his shallow breaths.

A kirin simply could not rise from its stupor so long as so much blood stained it. That prohibition was, perhaps, the strongest kind of magic that could bind a kirin and keep it helpless.

Raziel slumped dizzily as they landed, letting his burdens down to the sere grass. He had spent a great deal of power very fast, and while he was not tapped out just yet, the Hunger was beginning to make itself known. The scent of blood from Kain's injuries was alluring and heady, making his mouth water; it was only through an effort of will that Raziel turned away from such easy prey, and to his other concern.

Unfamiliar with kirin weaknesses, beyond their distaste for blood, Raziel did not know the cause of Taiki's continuing swoon. Straightening the boy's limbs, he found the broken bones easily enough. Unfortunately there was little he could do beyond splinting and binding them the best he could while the boy was still unconscious.

Taiki did not rouse, even during the painful ministrations. Shaking a shoulder and calling out his name produced no response either. With a huff of exasperation, Raziel sat back on his heels and considered the situation. Could mere injury and fright truly cause such a sustained swoon?

Taiki slept on.

Regardless of the dead weight, however, they could not remain here. Raziel did not wish to test the Hylden's ability to track his teleport, and they were all still too close to Meridian for comfort. If his wings were healed, he could scout for better sanctuary; as it was, they would have to proceed on foot.

Newly mindful of the boy's injuries, Raziel hoisted Taiki up, cradling him easily in one arm. Then he picked up Kain's immobile form, tucking him under the other, and began to walk, keeping nose and ears to the wind for any signs of humans or Hylden alike.

Bodies were ungangly things. Kain far moreso than Taiki -- the former did tend to drag and bump on the ground a little, and the spurs of armor on his calves caught on shrubbery from time to time, dragging sticks and leaves along after them. The green burned brightly in Kain's eyes, appearing to grow more furious by the minute.

The way eventually began to slope downwards, becoming more rocky. A trickling stream emerged from somewhere farther up the mountainside, bounding over the stones.

Knowing that he couldn't help but leave a track a blind man would follow with such burdens, Raziel muttered under his breath as he made his way down toward the stream. Water sometimes meant caves, or pools, at the very least--both of which would be quite welcome at the moment.

The spell on Kain, unfortunately, was not of unlimited duration. When he felt the younger vampire beginning to twitch and shrug off its effects, Raziel cast Sleep on him instead, rendering him unconscious, if no less cumbersome. Then he followed the trickle downstream for some time, following game trails since he dared not risk Kain's flesh to the water. The stream gradually widened, and after a few hours' search Raziel came upon a rocky hollow where the water had pooled, with thick overhanging brush to provide concealment and shelter.

Shoving Kain's body into the back of the hollow, he turned to the pool. Taiki still had not roused. Wading in until the water was to his waist, Raziel dropped Taiki in. Nothing else he had tried had worked. Perhaps *this* would rouse the boy.

Feather-light, the kirin floated senselessly back up to the top as the water washed the blood away from them both. His long hair spread out around them in gunmetal-gray skeins.

He did not yet awaken, however.

To Raziel's senses, however, the Kirin seemed to breathe more easily. His fluttering heartbeat began to grow more even.

A breeze stirred the branches of the overhanging scrub bushes. The vegetation was healthier here, even if only marginally.

Raziel left him in the water a few moments more, hoping the boy would awaken. When Taiki showed no signs of doing so, he lifted him out and headed for the shore, grumbling under his breath.

"...bloody unicorns..."

Depositing the naked boy on the grass next to Kain, Raziel detached his shoulder-cape--somewhat worse for the wear now, after being cannibalized for bandages--and flung it over him. The night was cool, but not cold--Raziel barely felt it at all. As thin-skinned as the unicorn seemed to be about everything else, however ....

Taii did not rouse for many moments after that.

But, clean of all blood but that from his own wounds, he began to weakly, eventually, stir.

Raziel had to confess to certain amount of relief at the sight. To be burdened by a sickly unicorn and an unconscious--and possessed--Kain in a world as unfriendly as Nosgoth was not a challenge he relished.

"Taiki," he greeted the boy, eyes gleaming gold in the darkness.

"...Is Kain-san okay?" was Taiki's faint reply.

"I have spelled him asleep--for now." Raziel glanced over at the immobile armored form at the back of their little hollow. Kain still bore the grievous wounds of their battle, though most had sealed, at least.

"Good..."

Taiki reached one trembling hand up to scrub at his face. Kain had been killing a ranka, or what looked like one... had they gotten to his world, too?

"Are your injuries causing your weakness?" Raziel asked, watching him carefully.

"Blood," Taiki mumbled miserably. "It makes us sick."

"Blood?" Raziel said in surprise. "I knew you disliked it, however ..." He paused, trying to factor in this new change in their plans. "How long will you remain ill?"

"I'll take us home," Taiki whispered. "Just give me a little while longer to rest, please. If I mess up a _shoku_ , it could really damage Nosgoth and Haven."

"Home?" Raziel echoed, raising his eyebrows. As far as he was concerned, he *was* home, however inhospitable it might be. Arguing the point served little purpose, however.

"I can wait until you recover," he said evenly. "However, it would be best if we did so in a better-protected location, if possible, if your recovery will take time. Can your demon-servants carry you if needs be?"

"Yes, now that I'm awake." Which took an intense effort of will on Taiki's part, which he did not speak of, either.

"Very well. Inform me when you feel able to move, and we shall try to seek better shelter." A thought occurred to him, and Raziel asked, "Could one of your servants scout out the terrain for us?" That might be a better tactic than wandering blindly on foot.

Raziel's caution proved well-founded. No overt sounds intruded on the solitude of their small pool, and that very lack might, perhaps, be a reason for concern. As they'd traveled away from Meridian, south into uninhabited foothills, animal life had become increasingly common. Now, however, the very faint and distant sounds of wildlife -- stirring deer, owls on the wing -- had begun to cease, as if frightened into silence.

"Sanshi can carry me." It was unusual for her to come out completely into the real world, but it was unavoidable now. And Taiki knew better than to think he could keep up in the state he was in.

"Gouran, please scout out the terrain."

The demon moved away, though with great reluctance.

Raziel nodded distractedly. The sudden absence of night sounds had not escaped him; such a thing was often the precursor to a threat or an attack. "Stay under cover, and hidden," he murmured under his breath, rising to a crouch. From there, he remained utterly motionless, using all his senses to their utmost.

The sounds of insects and small scuttling mammals vanished as Gouran passed by, moving away from the pool. Nightsounds were also absent around the pool itself -- unsurprising, given how devotedly most animals avoided vampires. Between the miasma of green energy than clung to, and fluctuated around, Kain, and the distant taint of Meridian, it was difficult to say if the Hylden were making any effort at magical assault. But the other places where sound seemed absent were all downbreeze -- if anything was skulking out there, they surely had a fair idea of Raziel's location.

Taiki simply lay quietly, and listened, very much like a wounded fawn hiding in the grass lest a hungry wolf gobble him up.

Gouran eventually returned-- in the form of a great, swift serpent, black and venomous and red-eyed-- and gave his report, his 'voice' an almost subsonic rumble.

"You did not catch sight of who or what the interlopers might be?" Raziel asked. "Failing that, did you find any places that would be suitable to retreat to?" Nosgoth had a great many ancient and forgotten places; hidden labyrinths both natural and made, forgotten ruins and ancient cities. Right now, Raziel would settle for a simple cave, if nothing else presented itself.

The voice spoke as if into the brain itself -- and perhaps it did, for the sound of Gouran's words did not carry. "Humans and Hylden both," said Gouran, tongue flicking. "Three parties, at a distance of three to four miles -- two groups due north, one to the north north-east. Each is six men in glyph-wrought light armor and two Hylden, one of whom bears a stave, a snake entwined, capped with an orb." Gouran's broad hood spread a little as he rose up. "All three parties are surrounded by cloaking enchantments, among others."

As for shelter -- this spit of land was relatively narrow, pinched between the sea to the west and high mountain ranges to the east. "The humans may find the heights and cliff faces impassable," the serpent suggested.

Raziel hissed under his breath at the news. "The Hylden know now that they deal with a vampire--no doubt the staff is like that which Moebius possessed." It was obvious that this was not a good thing. "The heights it must be, then ... I mislike the idea of being trapped here in this meager shelter. Your servant can carry you, unicorn--Kain, however, presents a problem." He could scale all but the most impassible of cliff-faces--but not while carrying another. There was the possibility of strapping Kain to him in some fashion--but he could not see a way of doing that which would not press upon a already-damaged wing, and unbalance him to boot.

"Gouran can carry us all," Taiki whispered. "Let's go."

Raziel had not known if Taiki's weakness would prevent Gouran's assistance--and it was with some relief that he accepted the offer. "Very well," he said, moving to the back to haul out Kain's limp form. "We'd best go while darkness is still our ally."

Gouran transformed again, and swept them all up in a cloak of purest dark, and carried them up to a high and safe place.

This high up, they had a clear vantage of all of the surrounding terrain for miles. They could even see Meridian in its entirety, as a dim smear of smoke and lights sprawled over the horizon. There was also a jumble of stones near where Gouran had deposited them--perhaps a ruin, or perhaps just a collection of dusty rock, but either way it served to provide further concealment, and prevented their figures from being silhouetted against the lightening sky.

"My thanks, Gouran," Raziel said formally, manhandling the limp form of his sire underneath a nearby overhang of rock. Kain would not burn in the sun--but Raziel did not care to take any risks with his already-injured sire.

Gouran rumbled faintly, amused, and faded back into the shadows, ever at the ready.

Taiki simply crawled some laborious distance away -- and downwind -- and emptied his guts of what remained inside, and then crawled right back.

Raziel wrinkled his nose at the stink, but otherwise did not comment. Once he felt Kain was safely tucked away, he approached the boy slowly, not sure if his presence would help or harm.

Crouching nearby, he looked Taiki over, noting the ghostly pallor and blanched cheeks. Even wrapped in the vivid crimson of Raziel's shoulder-cape, the unicorn simply did not look well. "Your servants cannot heal you?" he asked.

"No." Taiki wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, stared at it in disgust, and then scrubbed it hard against the rock-- as if to scrape the reek of blood and vomit right out of his skin.

"It's not a thing that can be healed by magic. If it was, it would be pointless."

Raziel tilted his head. "Pointless?"

Taiki was quiet for a moment as he tried to think of a succinct way to explain. "Kirin suffer the consequences of our rulers' choices. No kirin can endure violence. Blood makes us sick. We can't kill anything."

And yet, Taiki's decisions might have resulted in the deaths of many slaves. Just the thought made him lean forward and vomit again.

"So you become ill ... even if you are not the one to kill or shed blood?" Raziel simply did not understand. Such restraints were completely alien to his experience. What purpose was there in having a unicorn suffer for the sins of others? It did not make the suffering any less, after all, or return the dead to the living.

Raziel shook his head. "I cannot argue with your nature, but it seems a very strange thing to me." So many weaknesses and so few strengths ... no wonder there were no unicorns in Nosgoth.

"We suffer... so that our rulers can see that they're losing their way," Taiki gasped when his stomach was finally empty.

"But you have no ruler here," Raziel pointed out. "These are not your people, not your world. Your suffering does nothing to aid them."

"People are people," Taiki whispered.

Raziel sighed and shook his head. "I do not think I will ever understand your world. It seems strange and arbitrary to me, to punish the innocent instead of those who commit the crimes." Thinking back on what he had seen in the Hylden cathedral, he added, "What was that thing that the Hylden was eating? You called it an 'egg-fruit'?"

That was enough to make Taiki vomit again.

"A f-foetus," he sobbed, when he was done. "From my world!"

"A ...fetus? A baby?" To say Raziel was baffled was an understatement. "It did not *look* like a baby ... even one cut from the womb." And how Raziel knew that exactly was a question best left unanswered ... especially in front of certain kirin.

"Everyone... is born... from a fruit," hiccupped the little kirin tearfully. "Parents... wrap a ribbon on a branch... and then pray... and then Tentei answers their prayers and a fruit grows on that branch and then the fruit hatches and a baby comes out!"

"..." For a moment Raziel just stared at him, wondering if the unicorn actually expected him to believe such an incredible tale. But from the boy's sobs, it seemed obvious that *he* at least believed it.

"Your world ... has fruit-people?" he said in befuddlement.

"That's just how it is on my world." And Taiki huddled under the cloak. "I know it's not like that in other worlds. Mine was swept away to Japan and my soul settled into a woman's womb."

Why was he even explaining? A baby had just been killed. Maybe more of them had been stolen. And he was just sitting here, sick, useless.

Raziel still did not quite understand--so he focused on what he *could*. "Regardless, that means that the Hylden have somehow gained access to your world," he said grimly. "How could they have done so? They could not have plucked that knowledge from Kain's mind. And what other worlds might have been opened to them?"

"I don't know."

Taiki felt frozen inside. And deeply afraid, though not so much for himself -- though he was very frightened -- but for the people of his own world... and those others.

"Kain might be able to tell us--if he were in possession of his faculties," Raziel said, clinging to a few final straws of hope. "Can the Powers expel the Hylden that has taken hold of him?"

"...I think so. I cast Kazutaka...san's," And Taiki's voice wobbled on that name, "Brother out of him. And Konzen's future self can exorcise powerful evil beings with his sutra..."

Raziel was too well-disciplined to truly show the relief he felt at those words--but some of it showed in his eyes. That Kain had been captured, and other worlds invaded by Hylden, was bad enough ... but the thought that he might have lost his sire forever, past and future, due to his own rash misjudgement ....

Without looking at the boy, Raziel said slowly, "I must ... give you my apologies, Taiki. It is my fault and responsibility that these things have happened."

Taiki bit his lip. "I... think I understand, Raziel-san."

"I should not have listened to Kain. Yet I ignored my own instincts, and allowed him to blunder right into the Hylden trap. Everything that has happened since then is a result of that one ill-advised decision." Raziel watched the dark clouds scudding over the stars, a thumb-talon rubbing against one bracer. "...when we return to Haven, I will do my best to make amends."

"Thank you, Raziel-san," Taiki murmured, soft but very sincere. "But it's not just your fault."

"What other is there to take the blame for this?" Raziel said--not angrily, but evenly and unflinching. "The Hylden would never have known of the existence of Haven, of these other worlds, without my ill-advised attempt to pry into their affairs. And now--with Kain's capture, I fear I may have altered the flow of Nosgoth's history again; only this time in the Hylden's favor."

"We'll fix it, Raziel-san." Taiki did his best to project calm reassurance. "It's my responsibility, too."

 _If it can be fixed._ But Raziel did not say that out loud, for fear the words would summon the reality. Instead he simply nodded, and kept his eyes on the sky. Sometimes he thought Nosgoth would only be better off if something swept the world clean--clean of vampires, of Hylden, even of the humans.

Taiki gazed at him for a little while, and then turned his shimmering, liquid gaze on Kain. "I think I can take us home now," he murmured.

Raziel glanced at him, trying to see if it was pity or truth that had led Taiki to make the offer. Sadly, he was no expert on unicorns; but the boy's color did seem somewhat better.

"I shall carry Kain, then," he said in answer, rising to his feet. Raziel suited words to actions, lifting Kain, still unconscious in magically-induced sleep, easily in his arms. How strange it was to be treating Kain like a babe! If he had thought to do so earlier, Raziel thought ruefully, he might have saved them all a great deal of strife.

Taiki rose, clutching his cloak to himself with one hand as he reached out to rest the other on Raziel's arm.

The world imploded upon itself in concentric circles of gold, and the _shoku_ took them back to Haven.


End file.
